Out Here in the Perimeter There Are No Stars
by Jessahme Wren
Summary: Post 1x3ish. (Wilson/Vanessa). A bit of a character study. Compelled by the beauty of the early morning sky, Wilson calls Vanessa. Oneshot.


Post 1x3ish. Wilson/Vanessa. Not quite sure how this happened, but I love these two. Hopefully it's not OOC; this is the first time I've written a Daredevil fic so comments are so appreciated! Finally, I hope someone enjoys it :).

P.s: The title is a song lyric from The Doors.

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Glass and steel reflected a pre-dawn sky pregnant with clouds and doleful. A fading moon hung precariously over the skyline of Hell's Kitchen, bracing itself for the onslaught of another day.

Wilson Fisk walked from his bedroom, stopping on the polished floor of his penthouse in nearly the same spot he stopped on every day, and drank in his city.

It was dingy, with intermittent pops of shiny skyscraper newness amid the urban squalor. The sun still strained against the bands of darkness that held it fast to the upper atmosphere, but in the near-light he could see the white smoke from factories, the wet steam from subway vents and the spotty lights from the windows of the tenements he would soon own. The people of Hell's Kitchen, as diverse as they had ever been, went about their lives in affluence and abject poverty with little middle ground, milling about his city in some semblance of contribution, whether to the greater good or simply to their own survival. He smiled, his eyes misting momentarily as a surge of pride dilated his very veins.

His city was beautiful.

And if it was beautiful now, he found himself thinking, how splendorous would it be after he had restored it? His city had a past, a bleak and sour past, but it also had a future. A new day would dawn in Hell's Kitchen, and he would bring about that dawn by sweeping away the cloud of gloom that had choked the air from his home for as long as he could remember. He would purge the filth and his city would be born anew.

And then he thought of Vanessa.

Vanessa, who somewhere at this early hour was a bright flame struggling against the thick blanket of night...who was shining, though he knew not where, in spite of the darkness.

Her name in his mind, the image of her face that was conjured as soon as the word saturated his consciousness took him off guard. He felt his breathing change and his stomach drop out like it used to when he was a child, when his father would come home drunk and there was nowhere to hide. It wasn't fear, though, that provoked such a response in him now, not entirely. It was a sort of blissful dread that woke him from a dead sleep. It had been this way ever since he had met her, since their lives had intersected in the most clandestine of ways. Beyond his responsibilities or his vision for Hell's Kitchen, Vanessa had become the center of his world.

She had moved him; it was the easiest way to express his preoccupation now. She had moved him unlike he had ever been moved before. Vanessa Marianna had stirred the dry leaves of his heart and found an ember there. She had stoked life into him and _moved him_.

Vanessa, purveyor of beautiful things, would appreciate his view.

The phone was in his hand before he had decided to reach for it. Moments later, he was listening with pounding heart as each ring punctuated his need, his near-desperation to hear her voice. He didn't remember dialing. It was too early, he thought with some panic, and he really shouldn't-

"Hello?"

He sighed sharply, a dull exhale of half-stuttered relief as the invisible tether was established and he could breathe once more.

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry if I woke you, I-"

Her soft laughter, enigmatic with a note of history, washed over him like nostalgia. "It's alright Wilson," she intoned, her rich voice clear and perfect in the stillness of his home. "I've been up awhile. I'm actually at the gallery; we're acquiring a few pieces from Milan and they should arrive any moment."

Wilson found himself nodding, imagining Vanessa holding the phone near her hear and how her lips would look as she enunciated each word in her mildly accented, refined way.

"Tell me about the pieces," he finally said, realizing that his silence only revealed how inadequate he was at conversation. He was accustomed to giving orders, to relaying information, but those things did not require the symbiotic dynamic, the give and take apparent when two people converse for the simple pleasure of enjoying each other's company. He would have to learn.

"They're quite special," Vanessa began. "Five pieces from a young artist, relatively unknown in the States; it's a study in color but themed on the five senses. You'll have to see them."

She adjusted the phone, he could hear the faint whisper of her hair as she changed its position and he tried to picture her amid the glass and steel of the gallery where she looked and felt so at home.

"But you didn't call me to talk about art, did you?" Her voice had assumed a worried air, probably encouraged by his previous revelry. If he closed his eyes he could almost see the consternation in her face, the furrowed brow.

He felt his throat tighten. "I did, actually," he said a little thinly. He had grown warm, and while he should've been unsure of himself, something about her made him feel bold. He had realized this the moment they met.

"Are you near a window Vanessa?" He was standing at the glass wall of his penthouse, watching day break over Hell's Kitchen.

"I am," she replied; he could hear the mild interest in her voice, and as he looked at his reflection in the glass, Wilson pretended that it was her face he saw superimposed against the blue-gray sky and not his own.

"Tell me what you see."

She licked her lips; he pictured her doing it as she thought about his question. Vanessa was contemplative, astute in her observations, rational yet emotional, and he loved that balance in her character, the contrasting lines and curves of her personality that so complimented her completed form.

"I see opportunity," she said finally, "Set against the blank canvas of a new day. And I see darkness retreating in favor of the light."

"Or perhaps the darkness goes unwillingly," he added thoughtfully, "but nevertheless it goes."

She smiled; he knew she smiled because Vanessa often smiled when she was thinking, when she was working things out in her head as she was doing now.

"And what do you see Wilson?"

He took a long glance at the dark sky, at the oppressive clouds that would soon be burned away by the purifying light of the sun. "I see the first strokes of paint on an uncompleted masterpiece," he said finally. "The first of many that will shape this city into something worthy of your gallery."

She laughed then, and he could feel that ember she had found within him glow for want of growing.

"Will I see you tonight?" Wilson wondered how he must sound; even though they had developed a comfort in their interactions, a part of him still feared rejection.

"Perhaps," she said quietly. "I may not be able to get away; these pieces have to be logged and inventoried, after all. But perhaps you can come by and see them?"

He nodded in assent as the sun rose and washed the city in soft ribbons of yellow light. "Yes," Wilson said a little breathlessly, "that would be wonderful. I mean, I would like that very much."

"Good," she said, "So would I." She paused, maybe wanting to say more or simply measuring her words; she was not a woman who did anything hastily. "I'll see you tonight then. Goodbye Wilson."

He replied in kind, ignoring for a moment his distaste for goodbyes or for what they often entailed. He pocketed the phone, feeling lighter than he had in weeks. Wilson turned from the window, smoothing the top of his robe with a sense of calm, but also urgency.

There was a day afoot, and it was time to begin it.

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End file.
